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California
Related: About this forumNY Times: Trying to Save Merle Haggard’s Old Home (a Boxcar)
OILDALE, Calif. The tanker trains loaded with crude oil still rattle down the tracks at the end of the alleyway where Merle Haggard, a living legend of country music, grew up in a boxcar that his father transformed into the family home.
The walls were thick: cool in the summer and warm in winter, Lillian Haggard Rea, the musicians 93-year-old sister, recalled of the boxcar that their father, James Haggard, a carpenter with the Santa Fe-Southern Pacific Corporation, converted by hand during the Depression. It was, she said, just a wonderful home to live in.
Like much of the music associated with the Bakersfield sound, an unvarnished form of country that thrived in honky-tonks here in the 1950s and 60s, Mr. Haggards is rooted in the making-do values of the Dust Bowl. His parents migrated from Oklahoma in 1935 and, like thousands of Okies, they sought refuge in Oildale, a ragtag collection of camps and settlements on the outskirts of Bakersfield.
--- Snip ---
The walls were thick: cool in the summer and warm in winter, Lillian Haggard Rea, the musicians 93-year-old sister, recalled of the boxcar that their father, James Haggard, a carpenter with the Santa Fe-Southern Pacific Corporation, converted by hand during the Depression. It was, she said, just a wonderful home to live in.
Like much of the music associated with the Bakersfield sound, an unvarnished form of country that thrived in honky-tonks here in the 1950s and 60s, Mr. Haggards is rooted in the making-do values of the Dust Bowl. His parents migrated from Oklahoma in 1935 and, like thousands of Okies, they sought refuge in Oildale, a ragtag collection of camps and settlements on the outskirts of Bakersfield.
--- Snip ---
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/02/27/us/preservationists-aim-to-save-merle-haggards-childhood-home.html
Photo caption from the NYT: The campaign to Save Hags Boxcar would involve disassembling and restoring it to its 1940s glory, as well as building a new dwelling for the current occupant. Monica Almeida/The New York Times.
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NY Times: Trying to Save Merle Haggard’s Old Home (a Boxcar) (Original Post)
petronius
Feb 2014
OP
Politicalboi
(15,189 posts)1. Oildale hasn't changed much
Except I bet when Merle lived there, there were no bars on the windows.
hollysmom
(5,946 posts)2. that was the fist thing I noticed. sad n/t
bayareaboy
(793 posts)3. Things are A-OK for Merle now
I understand you could put several of the Boxcar houses inside his place in Redding.
He used to bring his extended family to a State Park where I used to volunteer. It is called Russian Gulch and its close to the town of Mendocino on the coast. A lot of folks wanted him to do the sing along thing, but he just kind of didn't listen to much to other folks.
mackerel
(4,412 posts)4. wow, cool story. i hope they do save it.